THE PROCESS OF CREATING ART

 
By Victoria Moore

Art has always been very important to me, even though I'm not much of an artist. I can't draw or paint like Pablo Picasso or concoct a canvas with vibrant colors like Henri Matisse. I can't capture a flower perfectly like Georgia O'keeffe or dribble paint like Jackson Pollack. I can enjoy the process of making my own compositions, however, that comes from a week of studying nature in all its glory or immersing myself in a famous masterpiece by Pierre August Renoir.

Before I took Kimber Luederitz's "Creative Art Class" at the Realm Studio in Santa Monica, California, I didn't even know what "the process" was. I thought you either had to have artistic talent or years of training to be an artist. Gifted with the patience it takes to work with people who're going through the cancer experience, Kimber provided a highly supportive environment where I not only grew artistically but emotionally and psychologically as well.  Her class is provided by Elizabeth's Canvas and is a partnership with Cancer Support Community-Benjamin Center.

Compared to the more advance students in the class, I initially felt what I brought to the art table was meager fare indeed. The only experience I had had was the Art History and Design classes I was required to take as part of my coursework as a Fashion Merchandising major at CSULA. At the time I utilized these skills when I worked in retail to do visual merchandising and fashion coordination. Later, when I became a fashion/feature writer I used them for photography and when describing various trends, stores and events. When I got Breast Cancer in 2010 and discovered a way to use art in Esther Dreifuss-Katen's "Cancer and Creativity" class to express what I was going through, I saw how beneficial it was.

Despite the differences in Kimber and Esther's classes, I still responded to both with equal enthusiasm. I did notice, however, that my education about art grew more with Kimber's class because we focused on specific types of painting for a longer period of time and got a chance to really work on a project. In the first class, we started with "color studies" in the mode of artist Mark Rothko. For some reason I chose pink, blue/green and white and painted them in straight bands with a series of connecting lines between the sections. When I thought about why I chose that palette I remembered that pink is my favorite color, blue means harmony, green means rebirth and white means cleanliness.

For our second class, we continued with color studies, but this time we added an organic shape to one portion of the painting. Following a week of studying trees, flowers, leaves and clouds I chose leaves as my organic shape. I still used pink and blue but this time I also added yellow and green. We finished the "color studies" in one day and besides feeling happy about creating something beautiful in a single sitting, I also enjoyed how involved I became while bringing it to completion.

The next painting we worked on, a vase of flowers, was a lot more difficult and caused me hours of frustration and anxiety. To start us off Kimber showed us a series of paintings on the computer then let us select a color copy from a variety of different ones. I chose a gorgeous Impressionist piece by Renoir that had a luxurious goldish-brown background against a bouquet of light pink flowers in a green vase. After we studied our chosen picture we were then instructed to sketch out our composition on canvas and then work on the table and background. Unlike the "color studies" we'd done previously this project was to be completed in stages.  My painting went through a significant amount of changes,where I eventually ended up painting a flower and vase that were simpler, but no less striking.

The event that made my progress even more trying was the breast reconstruction surgery I had on September 26. I was taking a computer class at the time too, so the effort it took to participate in both classes, was enormous. Still I pushed on with this painting, seeing it as becoming a reflection of my trials and tribulations. In the end the painting I ended up with, pink orchids in a green vase atop a red tablecloth and against an orange background, was a collaboration between Kimber and I that I profoundly appreciated. Vibrant and resilient, with all of the colors I'm attracted to on a good day, this final composition is an effort I'll always be glad I struggled to achieve.

Look for more upcoming art classes in partnership with Elizabeth's Canvas and Cancer Support Community-Benjamin at http://www.cancersupportcommunitybenjamincenter.org/calendar/program-calendar/month.calendar/2013/12/02/-.html or call 310-314-2555 for more information.